A Clean, Green Slate

You may have noticed a new addition to the margins of our website in 2012: a green plug (literally) that signals our latest commitment to conduct business more responsibly. And here’s the brief story behind it.

We spend a great deal of virtual page space extolling the virtues of eco-conscious behavior. While the circulation of thoughts certainly contributes to a healthier level of environmental awareness and action in people’s lives, we also wanted to do something. And we thought that making our (tiny) business carbon neutral was a good start.

After a great deal of research into eco-friendly servers and hosting options and consultations with a few different organizations, the folks at Clif Bar suggested we look into a company called Native Energy, which appraises the environmental impact of a firm’s operations and offers a wide range of projects and carbon offsets that neutralize those activities. During initial conversations with Clif Bar, they made it clear that combating climate change is among their chief concerns. They call it “Protecting the Places We Play™,” and they’ve used Native Energy to lighten their own footprint. So we had our business operations appraised by measuring variables like office space, travel patterns (flights to Australia and Canada don’t help the environment), commutes, shipping habits, and waste options, and we discovered The Inertia generates about 3.08 short tons of Carbon Dioxide per month. Three tons of harmful greenhouse gases from a tiny virtual enterprise….It’s hard to believe!

Luckily, the team at Clif Bar identified with our initiative and offered to support our mission to become carbon neutral. And so, we are. Now, each month we donate the equivalent of three tons of carbon offsets to a wind farm project in Iowa called Project Blend, whichplans toreduce 8,165 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Specifically, the offsets will fund the construction of a 1.6 MW wind turbine on a farm that is independently owned by a small family. Wind farms have already begun to sprout up in the area, and, aside from their environmental impact, they have also been linked to job creation and economic development in rural areas.

Again, this is a small step, but we’re proud of it, and we promise to continue to investigate more eco-conscious options in conducting business moving forward. Because if there’s one thing I learned in 2011, it’s that we can always, always improve.